The Electoral College Debate

Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seeking to represent New York’s 14th Congressional District, has called for the abolition of the Electoral College. Her argument came on the heels of the Senate’s confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. She was lamenting the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, nominated by George W. Bush, and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, nominated by Donald Trump, were court appointments made by presidents who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College vote.

Hillary Clinton has long been a critic of the Electoral College. Just recently, she wrote in The Atlantic, “You won’t be surprised to hear that I passionately believe it’s time to abolish the Electoral College.”

Subjecting presidential elections to the popular vote sounds eminently fair to Americans who have been miseducated by public schools and universities. Worse yet, the call to eliminate the Electoral College reflects an underlying contempt for our Constitution and its protections for personal liberty. Regarding miseducation, the founder of the Russian Communist Party, Vladimir Lenin, said, “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” His immediate successor, Josef Stalin, added, “Education is a weapon whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”

A large part of Americans’ miseducation is the often heard claim that we are a democracy. The word “democracy” appears nowhere in the two most fundamental documents of our nation — the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. In fact, our Constitution — in Article 4, Section 4 — guarantees “to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” The Founding Fathers had utter contempt for democracy. James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 10, said that in a pure democracy, “there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.” At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Virginia Gov. Edmund Randolph said that “in tracing these evils to their origin, every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.” John Adams wrote: “Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide.” At the Constitutional Convention, Alexander Hamilton said: “We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty” is found not in “the extremes of democracy but in moderate governments. … If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.”

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For those too dense to understand these arguments, ask yourselves: Does the Pledge of Allegiance say “to the democracy for which it stands” or “to the republic for which it stands”? Did Julia Ward Howe make a mistake in titling her Civil War song “Battle Hymn of the Republic”? Should she have titled it “Battle Hymn of the Democracy”?

The Founders saw our nation as being composed of sovereign states that voluntarily sought to join a union under the condition that each state admitted would be coequal with every other state. The Electoral College method of choosing the president and vice president guarantees that each state, whether large or small in area or population, has some voice in selecting the nation’s leaders. Were we to choose the president and vice president under a popular vote, the outcome of presidential races would always be decided by a few highly populated states. They would be states such as California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania, which contain 134.3 million people, or 41 percent of our population. Presidential candidates could safely ignore the interests of the citizens of Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Delaware. Why? They have only 5.58 million Americans, or 1.7 percent of the U.S. population. We would no longer be a government “of the people”; instead, our government would be put in power by and accountable to the leaders and citizens of a few highly populated states.

Political satirist H.L. Mencken said, “The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.”

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

38 Comments

We need to keep the Electoral College. If not the east coast and west coast will elect our presidents all by themselves. Getting rid of it would allow the presidential candidates to only worry about taking care of the two coasts.

She (Ocasio-Cortez) needs to take high school civics and US history again. Hillary Clinton; criminal, communist and long time sore loser would do anything (I mean anything to be the President) Her political correctness cannot hide her desperation. they are both enemies of the constitution, and not fit to hold office much less take the oath to protect the constitution. The hippies of the 60’s earned Phd’s in the 70’s infiltrated our schools and universities in the 80’s, and now they produce communist indoctrinated useful idiots! If the democrats can’t have it all they are ready to burn it down. Fortunately the electorate is not ready for that.

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usafoldsarge

3:48 pm October 17, 2018 at 3:48 pm

In reality, Los Angeles and New York City with one or two smaller cities, by themselves, using the popular vote could have possibly given Hitlery the White House. Strange, but almost all of the “learned people” refer to the USA as a democracy, proving that re-education took place in the public schools. These “re-educated” puppets then went to college and had their re-education reaffirmed before being sent out to further contaminate the school systems, both public and private

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ltuser

4:18 pm October 17, 2018 at 4:18 pm

Hells guard, even if she DID go back to school, with how libtards run education, i doubt she’d learn anything new!

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Ringmaster1

3:06 pm October 18, 2018 at 3:06 pm

She is from NYC and educated by those 60’s and 70’s hippies I think the only history class this little girl was ever taught was how the white Europeans killed the Indians and stole their land and how the dems freed the slaves.

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geoinsd

6:46 pm October 19, 2018 at 6:46 pm

If she did take high school civics again, she would just get the same Progressive indoctrination she already apparently received. Even in my high school civics class in 1980 was already teaching “living breathing constitution” and that the electoral college was created because of the inefficient communications and transportation of the 1700s, i.e. a national election would be too difficult to implement at the time.

The Progressive indoctrination in schools has been going on for decades.

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ltuser

3:29 pm October 20, 2018 at 3:29 pm

And that’s all because, WE conservative parents refused to speak out and stop it in its tracks, back then. For fear of looking like bullies, or not ‘wanting to stoop to the left’s lowness’..

Amen. I live in CA. I’m one of the few conservatives. The “electoral college” keeps everything fair. The new “idiot” from NY. does need a civics lesson, badly. We have an idiot that will probably be governor, shortly, Gavin Newsom. Wants to give everything away, plus some.

You make the assumption that they’re ignorant and not evil. I won’t assume that.

I believe they know exactly what would happen if we went to a straight majority vote: The end of America as we know it. Nor would they have to placate both coasts either. Just add 200 million fraudulent votes to NYC and they instantly win. Game over. We’ve yet to see the fraud too obvious and flagrant for them to stoop to in their naked pursuit of trying to destroy our nation.

The EC stays, period. There is no arguing with Libs.

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ltuser

1:28 am October 18, 2018 at 1:28 am

One of my online gaming comrades, lives in the Netherlands. He’s scratching his head over all this nonsense (as he calls it) with ‘electoral colleges, voter registration, voter ID laws’ and the like..

If the ad spots against Ocasio-Cortez don’t feature the Beatles, someone’s asleep at the wheel!

You say you’ll change the Constitution; well, you know, we all want to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution; well, you know, you’d better free you mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow

The Founders wanted three-branch government — executive, legislative and judicial. Whitehall system which they rejected tends to merge the executive and legislative (particluarly in the wrong ways). And as note, first Dem POTUS who sought to eliminate it wanted to go back to Whitehall system — where current ones want to do far worse, more like Soviet politburo.

Proving Founders to be prescient that it would be attacked, that they designed a “necessary-evil” to protect it, making its elmination as shambolic as could be possible from an orderly (European namesake-Christian) people!

If the Electoral College wasn’t enshrined in The Constitution of The United States, we’d have descended into mob rule before the mid 1800s. Even so, the 17th Amendment has moved us toward that OWG goal of disrupting The Rule of Law and eliminating Freedom and Liberty. In addition, the failure of the Several States to enforce their power under the 10th Amendment, pushes us closer to the abyss.

It is interesting that the same crowd that calls for an end to the Electoral College has been screaming voter disenfranchisement with every election, while their own plan would do just that by allowing the large population centers to control everything.

Not just that, but they keep screaming disenfranchisement, as well as block purges of voter rolls, to ensure only those CURRENTLY LIVING THERE (and currently living) are on those rolls, and voter IDs, that they DISENFRANCHISE EVERYONE, by allowing illegal invaders and DEAD folk to vote.

Why is there so much time and print spent validating a girl that is a candidate that has never held elective office? She won a primary against a dinosaur that didn’t even bother to campaign. And she is running for one of 435 seats, not queen of the universe. Her opinion, like that of Clinton, doesn’t amount to squat. They both would like to get rid of one of the foundations of our Republic. OK, noted.
Now it’s time to move on to a fresh topic.
Like which jailhouse tattoo will the Hildabeast get first.

Right on Max. Qualifications not required,today all you need is the press touting your brilliance, like Peter Sellers as Chance Gardener in the movie “being there” As he plays the mentally challenged gardener who is adored by the press with his idiotic statements and is nominated for the presidency. Check it out on google and you’ll laugh your butt off but I still worry about how it can and his happening. today.

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ltuser

2:38 am October 19, 2018 at 2:38 am

Did you ever see that Robin williams film, Man of the year, where that TV comedien runs for the presidency..
Sometimes i really think, that might wind up coming true.. The left running say Cobert..

Professor Williams made his point clear with two vital details and a simple explanation of each: why we are not a democracy and why we have the electoral college. Today’s unwise want to want to destroy what our founding fathers in their wisdom established. This lack of understanding shows what our public education system has become: a curse on the future of a free America.

Part of me feels that’s partially because many of these morons have not been PROPERLY Educated, they’ve only been liberally indoctrinated. THE OTHER PART feels they want to get rid of those, because they DO WANT mob rule, and communism to reign supreme.

“I think we should abolish the electoral collage. But I will not live in a home that wasn’t wired by a union member who has completed a proper apprenticeship program….I think. Brett Kavanaugh stole my notes.” – Ospacial-Cortex

“Democracy” is a softened term that means “mob rule.”
Democracy lynches whoever is accused; without a trial.
Democracy has no stability but flaps in the ever-changing breeze.
Democracy is a favorite tool to lead a nation toward a brutal totalitarian dictatorship.

If “democracy” was the standard, the election in 2000 would have taken many months to finally decide leaving America leaderless and defenseless for all that time.

Examination of the happenings in California is all that is needed to determine the importance of our electoral college. I don’t recall for how long they have been fighting on the various plans to divide the State into the multiple States it’s been argued they need to split into but part of the problem and by no means the only issue is areas holding the dense populations over ride the will of those living in more rural areas pushing all State issues to satisfy those areas over the far greater but less populated farm lands and it’s come to a head. That could be our Country too if we decide our leader doesn’t need the support of middle America.

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